COMMON ASSAULTS ON THE GOSPEL (Part 5)
“BELIEVE AND DO GOOD WORKS” Pt. 1
Another
assault on the Gospel message of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone
is “believe and do good works.” The idea promoted is that one must both believe
and do good works in order to be saved. If the good works are not present,
then, either (a) you were never saved, you never really believed, or (b) you
lost your salvation, or (c) you never got saved because you lack the good works
required.
Some
would argue that we are saved by faith alone, but if faith is alone (if there
are no works), then you are not saved, your faith was only an intellectual
faith, not a heart faith. In this view faith is usually redefined to include
turning from sin and surrendering one’s life to Christ. Assurance then, in the
final analysis, is based on one’s works or record rather than on the work of
Christ and the sure promises of the Word like 1 John 5:11-13 and John 5:24.
In the
final analysis of the works viewpoint, works are added to faith in Christ in
order to be saved. This means SALVATION
BY WORKS AND ASSURANCE BY WORKS.
The
argument is that genuine faith always results in good works. Because of new
life imparted to believers via spiritual regeneration, and because of the
presence of the Holy Spirit in every believer’s life, those who have genuinely
believed the gospel message about the person and work of Jesus Christ will, as
a general rule, produce some fruit, sometime, somehow. Jesus said:
He who eats My flesh and drinks
My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live
because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. (John 6:56-57)
As the
context suggests (vss. 60-69) eating His flesh and drinking His blood refers to
the initial act of believing in Christ. This results in the gifts of
regeneration and eternal life (vss. 50-51, 54, 58). But it also means the
believer is brought into a new relationship with the Savior so that he abides
(remains) in fellowship with Him (vs. 56). But it is this abiding or fellowship
which is the cause for fruitfulness or good works in the life of the believer
(John 15) and not just the presence of new life.
The Lord
was speaking of a general maxim, of what is generally true. He was not stating
an absolute – that which will always be true in the life of the believer. Many quote this passage and say, “See,
true believers will abide and bear fruit and so prove they were really saved.”
I believe that view is wrong because the Lord knew some Christians would
not abide or remain in fellowship with Him, and the proof of this is John 15
where He commanded the disciples to continue to abide. If it is not possible to stop abiding, lose
fellowship with the Lord, and thus stop bearing fruit, why would the Lord warn
His disciples about this possible failure?
This is what He does in John 15:1-6.
As a
general rule, every Christian will bear some fruit, somewhere, sometime,
somehow. But having said that, there are a few points of caution we need to
make that affect the concept of good works or fruitfulness and their use as
proofs for salvation and assurance.
As John
15 and many other passages of Scripture teach, the general maxim that believers
will bear fruit does not mean that all believers will be fruitful
or that a believer will always be fruitful (compare Paul’s
admonition to good works: Tit. 3:14; 2 Pet. 1:8). Both of these passages indicate that a true believer might be
unfruitful. These exhortations would be
meaningless otherwise. The same principle applies to the Lord’s admonition for
us to abide in Him that we might be fruitful.
Though
the following remarks bear on the lordship/mastery issue, they also apply here
since these two issues (good works and lordship) are really tied together. How much fruit or good works do believers
need to prove they are saved? How do we measure the amount of works or fruit
necessary to be sure we are saved in the lordship/mastery or believe/works
sense of the term? “Or how do we quantify the amount of defection that can be
tolerated without wondering if I have saving faith or if I in fact lost what I
formerly had?”
Ryrie
writes:
The lordship response, in spite
of its stringent demands on the nature of what the view calls saving faith,
must either say (1) that a disobedient Christian loses his salvation, or (2)
that some leeway exists for disobedience within the Christian life. Since many
lordship people hold to the security of the believer, they opt for the latter.
So we read a statement like
this: “A moment of failure does not invalidate a disciple’s credentials (John
MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1988, p.
199). My immediate reaction to such a
statement is to want to ask if two moments would? Or a week of defection, or a
month, or a year? or Two? How serious a
failure and for how long before we must conclude that such a person was in fact
not saved? Lordship teaching recognizes that “no one will obey perfectly”
(Ibid, p. 174), but the crucial question is simply how imperfectly can one obey
and yet be sure that he “believed” in the lordship/mastery salvation sense? If
“salvation requires total transformation” (Ibid, p. 183) and I do not meet that
requirement, then am I not saved? Or if
my transformation is less than total at any stage of my Christian life, was I
not saved in the first place?
Here
then is a key question: “How imperfectly can one obey or be without works and
yet be sure he is saved if works are the criterion for proof of saving faith
and eternal life?”
On the
other hand, if salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone and one’s works are
a proof of the nature of one’s fellowship and maturity, then his works
regardless of how small or great, become a criterion for blessing now and
rewards in eternity. They concern not my entrance
into heaven, but the nature of my inheritance in
heaven.
We reap
what we sow, but the harvest is not a matter of heaven or possession of eternal
life, but blessing versus discipline now, and rewards versus loss of rewards in
heaven (Heb. 12:7-13; 1 Cor. 11:28-32; Rom. 8:12-13, 17; Gal. 6:7-9; 1 Cor.
12-15; 2 Cor. 5:9-10).
Ryrie
writes,
My understanding of what fruit
is and therefore what I expect others to bear may be faulty and/or incomplete.
It is all too easy to have a mental list of spiritual fruits and to conclude if
someone does not produce what is on my list that he or she is not a believer.
But the reality is that most lists that we humans devise are too short, too
selective, too prejudiced, and often extra-biblical. God likely has a much more
accurate and longer list than most of us do.
A
person’s fruit will not necessarily be outwardly evident. A person’s fruit may be private or erratic,
and just because we do not see someone’s fruit does not mean that some fruit is
not there. Furthermore, we may see a man’s fruit, but we cannot see his
heart. We don’t know what motivated his
works. The works may have been motivated by selfish desires, by his desire to
impress, or to be accepted rather than by the Spirit and by love.
Many
unbelievers (those who profess no faith in Christ) will demonstrate all kinds
of good works like helping the poor, ministering to the sick, caring for their
family, self-control, and working for the benefit of the community in other
ways. Does this prove they know
God? No! Does it save them? No! While works may give evidence of new life
and fellowship with the Lord, it is still never a proof because there are too
many variables that we just cannot see.
According
to Scripture, bonafide fruit in the life of the believer is the result of
pruning and abiding, of the work of God as the Vinedresser, and the response of
the believer through fellowship and faith. When our Lord said, “without Me you
can do nothing,” He was not saying believer’s could produce no works, but that
there could be no bonafide fruit – works that were the result of new life and
the power of the Spirit.
Witnessing
for the Lord is a good work, but in order for it to be fruit it needs to be the
product of His life working in us. Compare John 15:1-6; 26-27; Acts 1:8 with
Matt. 7:13-28 and the warning about false prophets who sounded and looked like
sheep, who witnessed and did other things in the name of Christ, but had not
built their lives on His truth, i.e., on Christ.
If a
person gives a cup of cold water to a thirsty man, it may be:
·
The result of fellowship with the Lord and so also of
salvation.
·
The result of a works-for-salvation mentality like with
the religious Pharisees.
·
The result of a desire to be accepted by others or to
impress people. In this case it is a good work, but not the fruit of the Spirit
or of fellowship with the Lord. Motives are important and say a lot about the
source (1 Cor. 4:5; Jam. 4:3).
·
Or it may be the result of natural human compassion.
If a man
claims to be a Christian by the things he does and says: he goes to church,
prays, and says he knows the Lord, but refuses to help someone in need when it
is within his power, what does this indicate about the man? It could indicate
the person is not saved — but not necessarily. Remember, many who do not know
Christ help the poor. But refusal can also indicate the person is out of
fellowship and not walking by an active faith in the indwelling Holy Spirit (1
John 3:16-17; Gal. 5:22-23; Jam. 2:15-17).
What’s
the point? Works do not necessarily
prove a man’s salvation. Then what are some of the values of a person’s good
works?
Because
of the many variables and the problems outlined above, works are not designed
to be the fundamental means of assurance of salvation. Assurance is based on
something more absolute –the work of Christ and the Word. (Assurance of
Salvation was covered in Lesson 2 of Book 1 in this series, The Assured Life.
·
Good works glorify God especially when our motives are
right and He is the source of those works because we are abiding in Christ (1
Cor. 4:5; 6:20; 2 Cor. 9:13; 1 Pet. 2:12; 4:16).
·
Good works witness to others of God’s love and of the
truth of the claims of Christ. They can give evidence of the authenticity and
power of the gospel (2 Cor. 6:3-6; 1 Thess. 2:1-12; John 13:34-35).
·
Good works minister God’s love to men (1 John 3:17).
·
Good works promote peace and order in society (Rom.
13:1-4; 1 Pet. 2:14).
So let’s
not compromise the gospel of grace by adding anything to what man must do other
than believe the message of God’s saving love in Christ. Let’s all be
challenged as believers to grow in Christ, to submit to His lordship, and allow
Him to change our lives as we walk in fellowship with the Savior. Let’s also
remember that one of the evidences of salvation is the discipline of the Lord
(Heb. 12:5f). ¢
In
our next edition of the Grace Family Journal, J. Hampton Keathley III will
explain James 2 and how it relates to this issue.
J.
Hampton Keathley III, Th.M. is a 1966 graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary
and a former pastor of 28 years. Hampton currently writes for the Biblical
Studies Foundation.
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