Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” USA Olympic hockey team, was known for his motivational and sometimes off-the-wall quotes. One of my favorites is when he would tell his team, “You think you can win on talent alone? Gentlemen, you don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.”In part 1 of “Ecclesionomy vs. Ephesians,” (Dec. 28th blog entry), I took up the issue of faith vs. works in Christianity. This was a follow-up to a previous (silly) blog where I quoted from the book of “Ecclesionomy” and discussed whether children need to do good works in order to receive presents from Santa Claus, or if they merely need to believe (have faith) in him.
In part 1, I posed the question: If salvation, or going to heaven, is based on good works, then how many good works does it take? Ten per day for the rest of your life? More than the next guy? Remember that the Bible describes God as divine, holy, and perfect—and His standard for us is holiness and perfection. This puts us in a bit of a bind, since the Bible also says that we humans are not perfect (i.e. we are all sinners). If I may paraphrase Herb Brooks: You think you can get to heaven by good works? Ladies and Gentlemen, you can’t do enough good works to make it to heaven on good works.
As discussed, Ephesians 2:8-10 (among other biblical passages) gives us the answer. Verses 8 and 9 say, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” We are saved by accepting the free gift of God’s grace, and we do so by placing our faith in God. “Faith in God” means believing that God sent His Son, Jesus, to the earth to live a perfect life, pay the penalty for our sins by dying on a cross, and being raised again to life.
That’s all well and good, you might say. But based on that, it sounds like a person can profess to have “faith,” accepting this gift of “grace,” then simply go back to the sofa, eat chips, drink soda, watch reality TV, and never do a good deed for the rest of his or her life. What is the role of good works? Certainly part of Christianity is living a good, moral life, right?
This is where Ephesians 2:10 comes in. It says, “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” There are three key points here.
First, we are all a special creation of God, His “workmanship.” Thus He has established a relationship with humankind.
Second, we are created anew in Christ Jesus when we place our faith in Him as described previously. Notice that we “do good works” as a result of this experience, not as a prerequisite to earn it.
And third, this is God’s will. God has actually “prepared in advance” for us to do good works.
So, the Christian does good works as a loving response to the loving gift of God’s grace, not as a means to earn God’s favor. We don’t act “well behaved” all year in order to receive “presents.” Rather, we do good deeds because as Christians, we are in effect a brand new person—a “new creation” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), doing the good works that God has prepared for us to do.
Obviously, this discussion only scratches the surface of the “faith vs. works” question. We could continue all day and look at many other important passages in the Bible, such as the second chapter of James, and as I mentioned, the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians.
But let me finish by saying this. I think you will agree that there are many religions out there today that have at their root the idea that people have to earn their salvation—that they somehow have to appease or please their deity whom they may or may not know. Folks, that is not the gospel of the Christian faith. If you are trying to earn salvation through good works, you will never, ever get there. Christianity maintains that a person is saved by the grace of a God who we can know, because He created us and has established a relationship with us. What we must do is place our faith in Him.
