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One of the more difficult aspects of Christianity to understand is the place of good works in the life of a believer. This has been true historically, since much of the contention between the Roman Catholic Church and the magisterial Reformers was centered on the role that works play—or do not play—in our justification. Even today, believers can be confused about the role that good works play in our salvation. It is important, however, to consider good works in light of the gospel itself. Yet to get to the good news of salvation in Christ, we must first consider the “bad news” that the entrance of sin brings.
The opening chapters of Genesis speak of the creation of man as the apex of God’s creative work. God made man in His image and set him to work and keep the garden of Eden. Likewise, God made Eve as a helper for Adam, someone who corresponded to him and was perfectly suited to assist him in his work. Although Genesis does not use this language, we see already in Adam and Eve the “chief end of man”—that we are made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism 1). But glorifying and enjoying God was not just something that Adam and Eve were made able to do. There in the garden, they actually enjoyed and glorified Him in their whole being.
The third chapter of Genesis, however, speaks of the entrance of sin and misery into the world. Because Adam ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he broke the covenant that God had made with him. The curse that God had decreed against such sin and disobedience was that “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). While God graciously held back the fullness of that curse—Adam did not drop dead the moment his teeth pierced the fruit—Adam did experience spiritual death. By his disobedience, he lost the natural ability to glorify and enjoy his Creator and covenant God.
Here is the “bad news”—because sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, all those who are descended from him by natural generation (that is, all but Jesus) lost the ability to obey and love God. Indeed, since we are dead in our sins and trespasses, we do not even desire to obey Him or love Him.
In this fallen condition, humanity faces two problems: the presence of guilt and the absence of righteousness. Not only are we guilty in Adam as our covenant head (see Rom. 5:12), we are also guilty of our own actual sins. Moreover, since the “wages of sin is death” (6:23), all those who are guilty of sin deserve the punishment that sin requires.
As those fallen in Adam, we also face the problem of a complete absence of righteousness. Paul speaks of the “righteous requirement of the law” that must be fulfilled (8:4). The corruption of sin means, however, that we are completely unable to fulfill the law’s demand of perfect obedience to its every command. We therefore owe a double debt: the perfect righteousness that the law demands and the full penalty that breaking the law requires. We cannot do the former, and even an eternity in hell cannot fully satisfy the latter.
The good news of the gospel, however, speaks into the whole of our circumstance before God. Jesus came down from heaven, for us and for our salvation, to save sinners. Throughout the whole of His life, Jesus lived in perfect conformity to God’s law. He did not violate a single commandment—neither in His thoughts nor in His actions. Furthermore, His obedience was not merely formal or feigned. No, Jesus rejoiced to do His Father’s will.
His obedience culminated on the cross. There, Jesus took the wrath that we deserve for our sins and paid the penalty that the law demands of sinners. But that death could not hold Him. On the third day, Jesus was raised from the dead—a vindication of His every word and work and the down payment of resurrection for all whom He saved. Jesus, the perfect Savior, perfectly accomplished our salvation in His life, death, and resurrection.
The cross reveals at once both the desperate need of sinners and the gracious offer of God in our salvation. We lack a righteousness of our own, and the cross reveals what our sins deserve: to be forsaken by God and to suffer the weight of our sinful disobedience for all eternity. When Paul states that God “made him to be sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), he turns us back to the cross that we might clearly understand what sin deserves. Yet Christ was made to be sin “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The question on which the whole of the gospel turns is this: How does a sinner receive this perfectly accomplished salvation? The Bible gives only this answer: We receive the finished work of Christ by grace alone through faith alone. In saying that we receive the righteousness of Christ by grace, we affirm that it is not the result of works. There is nothing in us or done by us that deserves or merits the salvation that is in Christ. God offers this righteousness by grace—His merciful favor in the face of our utter lack of merit.
What is given as a gift by grace is received by the sinner only through faith. Yet still we might ask: How does faith “receive” the righteousness of Christ? When we believe in Christ as He is offered in the gospel, a double imputation happens: First, our sins are given to Christ such that His sacrificial death is counted as full payment for all that they deserve; and second, His perfect righteousness is given to us, such that we are accepted by God as those who have fully obeyed all that the law requires.
In the Bible, this double imputation is called justification—a declaration by God that our sins are forgiven and we are now righteous in His sight. That God declares sinners righteous by grace alone through faith alone was a central point of contention during the Protestant Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church taught that “to justify” does not mean “to declare someone righteous” but “to make someone righteous.” In other words, God does not simply say that the sinner is righteous but does something in the person such that he becomes righteous in himself. There is, according to this view, an “infusion” of grace that transforms a sinner into a saint.
The Reformers, however, realized that justification was a legal term. A judge declares someone “not guilty”; he does not make him “not guilty.” Indeed, a just and righteous judge would not declare someone “not guilty” unless he was, in fact, innocent. But God is not unrighteous when He declares sinners righteous because He has promised to accept a surety on their behalf. The whole sacrificial system taught that God was willing to accept the death of a substitute in the place of the sinner. Of course, the “blood of bulls and goats” ultimately makes only a token substitute, ever pointing toward the one final sacrifice of Christ.
The central error of the Roman Catholic understanding was to confuse God’s one-time act of justification with His ongoing work of sanctification. Indeed, Roman Catholics combine both the work and the act in their doctrine of justification. For them, God cannot declare a person righteous unless he actually is righteous. Thus, the grace that is given by God brings a person into a state of justification, but the person must cooperate with this grace to remain in that state. Good works are therefore central to a person’s justification.
Not only did the Reformers distinguish between the act of justification and the work of sanctification, but they also clearly understood the ground on which God declares a person righteous. Westminster Confession of Faith 11.1 outlines several things that are not the ground on which God counts a sinner as righteous. The basis of this declaration is “not for anything wrought in them, or done by them . . . ; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness.” Therefore, God does not first make us righteous and then declare us so. Neither does God see in us any good work that could count as righteousness. This is true even of our faith—we do not merit that which cannot be merited by the act of believing.
What is the ground, then, on which God declares us righteous in His sight? Again, the Westminster Confession provides us with a clear answer: God justifies sinners “by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them.” This righteousness of Christ is the only ground of our justification. By grace alone through faith alone, God imputes—or reckons—to believers the whole obedience of Christ to the law of God and the full satisfaction of God’s wrath due to sin. Faith is not the ground of our justification but the instrument. God does not see faith in us and reward that faith with justification. Rather, faith is the God-given conduit through which the blessings that Christ purchased in His life, death, and resurrection become ours. Faith is how we take hold of Christ in our salvation.
Roman Catholic theologians are in error not by claiming that good works are necessary but only in how they claim them to be necessary. Good works are not a necessary condition for salvation but a necessary result of salvation. In other words, good works do not contribute to the declaration of righteousness in our justification, but they do necessarily flow from that declaration.
What is the role of good works in our justification? If the finished work of Christ alone is the ground of our justification, and if faith alone is the instrument of our justification, what room is left for good works? Works done in obedience to God are the result of a living and active faith. These good works are necessary—not as a precondition (in order to be saved) but as the necessary result of having been saved.
Good works are necessary for at least two reasons. First, good works are necessary as our duty before God. In our salvation, we are adopted and given all the rights and privileges of being the children of God. We call on God as our Father, and He cares for us in every way. Similarly, Paul says that God has “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Therefore, we have a duty to obey—as children obey their parents, as subjects obey their king.
But children do not obey their parents in hopes that they might become children any more than subjects obey their king in hopes that they might become subjects. It would be a very confused and misinformed child who sought to earn the right to be in a family by obedience to his parents. Rather, children have a duty to obey their parents precisely because they are their parents. Subjects have a duty to obey their king precisely because he is their king. In the same way, we obey God not because we hope to be saved by His grace through faith but because we have already been saved.
The preface to the Ten Commandments teaches this in a profound way. Before giving the summary of the moral law that God requires of Israel as His people, God reminds them who He is: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex. 20:2). He identifies Himself with their redemption out of slavery in Egypt. He is the God who rescued them, who saved them. Indeed, He is the God who had already rescued them out of slavery. God does not offer rescue out of slavery in Egypt after they have obeyed. He claims them for His people and brings them out of slavery. God therefore delivers His moral law to His people, as His people.
The fact that evangelical obedience to all of God’s commands is our duty as redeemed believers is often neglected in our thoughts about our salvation. Perhaps this is because “duty” sounds too much like earning salvation or achieving some merit before God. Yet we must remember that Jesus asked, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). If we call on Him as Lord, how can we not obey His commands?
Second, good works are necessary as the grateful response of redeemed sinners to the salvation that Christ has accomplished. When we consider the magnitude of the debt that we once owed and the marvelous graciousness of the salvation that is now ours in Christ, how can we not respond in grateful obedience to Christ? We have been grafted into Christ. What flows into us is that new life of Christ. We who were dead in our sins and trespasses have been made alive together with Christ.
What was the evidence of Jesus’ power over the death of His friend Lazarus? After all, anyone could say, “Lazarus, come out.” But it was only as Lazarus actually came out of the tomb, living and breathing, that the saving power of Christ was on display in his life.
And so just as children love to see the shining countenance of their earthly father, we love this blessing from our heavenly Father. We make it our aim to please our God and Father because of the great salvation we have in Christ (2 Cor. 5:9). To be sure, we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), but we also love what He loves—and hate what He hates—because He first loved us. His commands are not burdensome (1 John 5:3), and the life that He pours into us is abundant life (John 10:10). It was for joy and blessing and honor and glory that Christ has saved us. A heart that is not turned toward new obedience is a heart that has not turned at all. In light of all this, we must say that good works are required for salvation—not as the ground or basis for salvation but as the necessary result of salvation.
It is also important to remember that just as saving faith is never alone in the one who is saved, so too is justification never alone—it is always accompanied by adoption, sanctification, glorification, and all the other benefits that accompany our salvation. He who began a good work in us in our justification “will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). By grace, through faith, we are in the golden chain of salvation (Rom. 8:30). Indeed, the glorification that awaits us with the return of Christ is so certain and secure that Paul can speak of it in the past tense.
Our faith is never alone, and our justification is never alone, but we are also never alone in our salvation. We have the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, who enables us to rest in the finished work of Christ and to respond to our duties as redeemed believers with joy and gratitude. But we are also not alone because God has placed us within the body of Christ. We belong to Christ’s church, and we are called to stir one another up to good works (Heb. 10:24).
We can consider the relationship between our good works and salvation doctrinally, but we can also consider this relationship experientially. The gospel calls us to trust in the God who justifies, who sanctifies, and who saves utterly all those who come to Him in repentance and faith. Yet we do not only believe in Christ for our salvation—we must also believe Christ. That is, we must trust Him when He tells us that His ways are better, that His commands are not burdensome, and that the gospel call to “come, and follow Me” is a call to an utterly new way of living.
Therefore, we wait with patience, we respond with kindness, and we put our remaining sin to death—not because of an intellectual calculation but because of our love for our Savior. We obey Him because we trust Him. We obey Him because we desire His shining countenance more than the dim and flickering flame of this world’s approval. We obey Him because we have tasted and have seen that the Lord is good.
But we also obey Him because there is no neutrality between obedience and disobedience. One of the things that we must wrestle with as believers is the reality that we are both saved from something and saved for something. God in Christ has saved us from sin and misery, death and hell. But we are also saved for something—for obedience and joy, life and heaven. Just as there is no middle ground between heaven and hell, no middle ground between life and death, so there is no middle ground between sin and obedience, between the misery of sin and the joy of new life in Christ.
Christ Jesus has fully accomplished our salvation through His finished work on our behalf. He has paid the penalty of sin and has lived a life of perfect righteousness. God pours out the double blessing on us in our justification—by grace through faith. And all who receive this glorious work of Christ respond to that gracious justification with works of obedience—empowered by the Holy Spirit, in the presence of God’s people, to the glory of our great God and King.